Blind Spot
See review this issue. Varsity, Fri-Sun 2:30, 4:40, 7, 9:15 pm.
Five Corners
Screenwriter John Patrick Shanley's (Moonstruck) 1987 mishmashed day-in-the-life drama starring Tim Robbins, John Turturro, and Jodie Foster as the stalking victim of a convicted rapist just released from prison. Rendezvous, Wed at 7:30 pm.
* Ghost World
"I'm hungry enough to chew the crotch out of a rag doll." Egyptian, Fri-Sat at midnight
* Ikiru
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, Fri at 5:30, 8:15 pm, Sat-Sun 2:45, 5:30, 8:15 pm, Tues-Thurs at 5:30, 8:15 pm.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
See Stranger Suggests. Grand Illusion, Fri-Sat at 11 pm.
Pixel Vision/Super-8 Show
The Obsolete Media Weekend (that also features a stereo photography slideshow and an Atari championship) concludes with a showcase of two kitsch cult film formats: the uncanny stream of Fisher-Price's PXL 2000 (AKA PixelVision) and the unfortunately expired sound Super-8. Little Theatre, Sat at 8 pm.
The Pogues: Live At the Town and Country
Back when Shane MacGowan still had the rotting remains of some teeth in his bloated, foaming face, the Pogues recorded a mediocre live film on St. Patrick's Day of 1988. Featuring a cross section of their most celebrated anthems, viewed the way they were meant to seen--under the heavy influence of alcohol. Sunset, Mon at 8 pm.
Short Films of Africa
The Rakumi Arts organization, in collaboration with 911 Media Arts, presents a series of African shorts with subject matter ranging from the African AIDS epidemic to the political weight of checkers. 911 Media Arts, Fri at 8 pm.
Speaking in Strings
Even if the narrative portion of this documentary consisted of nothing more than some anonymous face monotonously reading from the phone book, it would still be worth seeing to hear the musical genius that is violinist Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg. Like all stories about sensitive artists, this one boasts the seemingly requisite number of tragedies: never knowing her father; accidentally severing her finger; a suicide attempt. But all that becomes the backdrop to watching this stunning, highly emotive performer in full flight. Truly, music can express emotions in a way words can only dream of. (Gillian G. Gaar) JBL Theater, Wed at 7, 9 pm.
Unreal TV
An examination of the reality television phenominon, with clips from various "vintage" programs, and a full-length episode screening of the too-hot-for-Seattle reality show Cheaters. Little Theatre, Tues at 8 pm.
NOW PLAYING
* About Schmidt
About Schmidt stars an exhausted Jack Nicholson as Warren Schmidt, an Omaha actuary facing the nothingness of retirement. At the end of his last day at the insurance agency, all of Schmidt's lifework is packed into blank boxes, the office is empty, and he has nowhere to go. When he awakes the following morning next to his wife, who bores him immensely, he finds himself at the top of the slope of slow time that leads down to an ordinary death. Overall, an entertaining film, whose comedy alone sustains the entire picture. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
* Adaptation
Crafting a follow-up to Being John Malkovich, 1999's head-tripping deconstruction of identity, desire, and fame, would be difficult job for anyone. For Charlie Kaufman--writer of Malkovich, co-writer and lead character of Adaptation--it's a virtual impossibility. Thankfully, Kaufman and Spike Jonze have created a rich entertainment out of this impossibility, stuffing it with enough meta-plot twists to fuel half a dozen lesser movies, and bringing it to the screen with brilliant performances by Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep. Still, not even Kaufman and Jonze can overcome the unfortunate fact that listening to a writer whine about how hard it is to write is always annoying. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Agent Cody Banks
"When it comes to girls, I suck." That's the central conflict in Agent Cody Banks, a dumb movie about a smart teenager who leads a double life: he's both a regular kid and a top-secret CIA agent. Oh sure, there are some other conflicts here too, like saving the world from little ice cubes of nanorobots, hidden away in a snow cave run by faggoty, big-lipped, vaguely French bad guys. And sure, Banks gets to operate all kinds of high-tech gadgetry (X-ray sunglasses, a turbo-powered snowboard) and shimmy through ventilation shafts and hang off helicopters without ever having to contend with anything so typical as a pimple--but when it comes to bagging the girl at the end of the movie, no amount of training can prevent him from fumbling the most vital instrument he possesses. (CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE) Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Woodinville 12
Bringing Down the House
I think it's best at this point to separate the former brilliance of Steve Martin popular comedian of the '70s and '80s, from Steve Martin middling embarrassment to screen acting of present. I propose that the latter Martin be from here on referred to as "Oh Jesus, Please Just Write Another Book." In this round, Oh Jesus, Please Just Write Another Book rolls rappin' granny style with Queen Latifah in a wacky debacle about how old people and black people are funny together. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Majestic Bay, Neptune, Pacific Place, Woodinville 12
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can, Steven "Poet of Suburbia" Spielberg's latest opus, is the safest of ventures--so much so that even Spielberg himself seems bored. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, it is not so much a film as a mint, a guaranteed blockbuster. So why, then, given the talent involved, does Catch Me If You Can so thoroughly deflate as it unspools before your eyes? The answer, methinks, is Spielberg's sheer, obvious boredom. Long stretches of Catch Me If You Can are filmed so lazily, in a manner so devoid of energy, that the entire enterprise falters, producing more of a shrug than general excitement. Add to that a script that stumbles between oversentimentality and near-cartoonishness, and the end result is a thrilling, near-unbelievable story rendered dull and even more unbelievable. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
* Chicago
Basically, the last hour of Chicago is a mess. In addition to not trusting his material, director Rob Marshall doesn't appear to trust either of the two movie-musical solutions he picks. Nevertheless, I recommend Chicago. If you didn't get to see the Broadway revival, you should catch it. You'll have to endure Richard Gere as Billy Flynn, of course, but it's a small price to pay to watch the Fosse-inspired choreography and Catherine Zeta-Jones' star-turn as Velma Kelly. (DAN SAVAGE)
City of God
Fernando Meirelles' Cidade de Deus (City of God) draws its energy, visual flourishes, and narrative strategies from two American sources: Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese. This borrowing, or theft, does not, however, make Cidade de Deus an American film; Cidade de Deus is a Brazilian film. Though great to watch, Cidade de Deus curiously fails to comment on the reason why most of the people who live and die in the ghetto are brown, beige, and black. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Cradle 2 the Grave
With Cradle 2 the Grave, director Andrzej Bartkowiak dips into the same well of hiphop and kung fu that helped him make Romeo Must Die, but this time pulls up a muddy skeleton of a movie. Starring rapper DMX as Tony Fait, charismatic ringleader of a band of jewel thieves who heist some mysterious black diamonds, the film starts out promisingly as a goofy caper flick but soon kills itself with bad action sequences, inexplicable racial jokes, and dishonest writing (SCOTT McGEATH)
Daredevil
First some good news: Just four months until Ang Lee's The Hulk arrives. Now the bad news: Daredevil is stunningly bad.
Dark Blue
Dark Blue bolts from the gate as a gritty, energetic hybrid of the great L.A. Confidential and the lesser Training Day, given a potentially killer historical spin. Unfortunately, director Ron Shelton goes for the mainstream jugular with a jarring mix of gritty crime and hyperactive action, laced with perfunctory nods to deeper issues; the few times the car chases stop to make way for character development, the resulting revelations are so baldly soliloquized, the attending characters should be given magazines. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Deliver Us From Eva
It may be LL's movie, but he matters for shit in this story of sisterly love. A tragic loss of parents left oldest sibling Eva the boss of her sisters, and now that they've grown up, the men in the sister's romantic scope want Eva to get her own guy so she'll butt out. Enter LL Cool J, or just ignore him and enjoy the film for what it is, another chick flick where the bonding is done at the beauty salon. (KATHLEEN WILSON)
* Far From Heaven
In both style and substance, Far from Heaven pays homage to Douglas Sirk's classic 1956 melodrama All That Heaven Allows, upping the ante by introducing intricate new threats to his heroine's true love--threats that would've landed Sirk's film in the studio censor's blender. But Todd Haynes' pitch-perfect inclusion of sexual confusion and racial bigotry into Sirk's original mix gives him the power to transcend his source material and create a melodramatic masterpiece all his own. (DAVID SCHMADER)
Final Destination 2
No, Final Destination 2 does not have good acting, nor a compelling plot. It does not blur the lines of reality or explore the dark reaches of the director's mind. All it has to offer you is awesome killing. You feel sorry for one character as they scream, "I don't want to die," but does the film give them any sympathy? NO! HA! They get their head ripped off just like everyone else. It's great. (KATIE SHIMER)
* Gangs of New York
Combining real history, richly imagined historiography, and classical melodrama, Gangs of New York tells the story of Amsterdam Vallon, a young Irish immigrant (Leonardo DiCaprio) in mid-19th-century New York City seeking to avenge the murder of his father by a rival gang leader (Daniel Day-Lewis) who has since grown into a powerful crime boss. Scorsese invests the picture with increasingly biblical gravity in an attempt to portray the birth of a nation as a violent, ritualistic collision between two men. Day-Lewis gives the kind of performance that makes you feel proud to be a member of the human race. (SEAN NELSON)
Gods and Generals
I walked out on Gods and Generals a little more than an hour into the film, which runs approximately 220 minutes, not counting the intermission. Though I belong to the relative minority thrilled by the prospect of a four-hour movie about the Civil War, I simply didn't have what it takes to sit through another second of what may very well be the most vacuous, poorly acted, and pathetic depiction of the War of Northern Aggression ever committed to celluloid. (SEAN NELSON)
Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a thunderous bore. The plot is some garbage about destiny and magic and spiders and snakes--if you're planning on seeing it, you either already know the plot or won't want to. Only a kid could stand it, but no kid worth a damn is going to want to sit through a 161-minute movie in which nothing exciting or funny happens, and in which our hero is never truly jeopardized. Harry is just a charmed little guy who gets everything he wants and always saves the day. (SEAN NELSON)
* The Hours
I was prepared to hate this movie. Script by David Hare, whose previous work I regard as self-absorbed Brit-babble, from a novel I haven't read by Michael Cunningham that won a Pulitzer, kiss of death, about a writer whose life is a lightning rod for stupidity about mental illness and feminism, and whose work has never meant much to me. Direction by Stephen Daldry, whose Billy Elliot was terrific in part because it was so self-confidently slight, here with a cast of thousands, every single one of them a Major Dramatic Star. And the nose! Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf in a large, deforming nasal prosthesis; I had seen it in the previews and shuddered. Altogether, I hoped the movie was a shapeless pasticcio that would let me make cruel fun. I was so wrong. This is a really good movie. (BARLEY BLAIR)
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey star in this romantic comedy about a cad who makes a bet and the journalist who loves him. Pardon me while I vomit into my popcorn bag.
The Hunted
See review this issue. Factoria, Grand Alderwood, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Oak Tree, Woodinville 12
Irreversible
See review this issue. Varsity
The Jungle Book 2
AKA Clear Cut!
Just Married
Ashton Kutcher is SO FUCKING SEXY. (DAN SAVAGE)
Kangaroo Jack
If there's one thing that I love more than talking animals in sunglasses, it'd have to be Christopher Walken. Well I'll be damned! Two great tastes....
Laurel Canyon
See review this issue. Harvard Exit
The Life of David Gale
With lead-balloon pacing and embarrassingly slack-jawed cinematography--not to mention another impossibly smug Kevin Spacey performance--David Gale has all the subtle artistry of a Twinkie. Without all the suspense. (ZAC PENNINGTON)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Two Towers is a deeply rousing tribute to the spirit of resistance in the face of certain defeat. The film resonates so deeply, despite its potentially embarrassing fantasy trappings, because the filmmaker recognizes that violence and sacrifice are unavoidable aspects of the survival of civilizations. (SEAN NELSON)
* Lost in La Mancha
What makes Lost in La Mancha (a behind the scenes look at a movie left unfinished) worthy of wider interest is that the payoff we expect from such a film--AKA the happy ending, after the premiere, when all the hard work and craziness is rewarded--isn't forthcoming. Which we know going in. So the whole creative process, which is founded on the expectation of filming the unfilmable, winds up feeling not like the noble endeavor we imagine art to be, but rather like an exercise in futility. But that's where things become really interesting, and really depressing. Because Lost in La Mancha is, let's face it, a kind of genre piece--in the mad-filmmaker genre; there are certain tropes we know to look for. (SEAN NELSON)
Max
All in all an unimportant film, Max is about a sophisticated and wealthy (not to mention fictional) Jewish art dealer (John Cusack) who takes a side interest in the work of a poor and struggling artist named Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor). The two develop an awkward friendship, with Hitler looking up to the one-armed Max Rothman (whose arm was claimed by the "war to end all wars") and Max taking pity on Hitler (who is an obnoxious but innocuous anti-Semite). (CHARLES MUDEDE)
National Security
The sea of advertising for this Martin Lawrence vehicle (that mandatorily buses in whitey Steve Zahn) features the image of a crazed Lawrence stalking the streets of California wielding a handgun. How quickly we forget.
Nicholas Nickleby
Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Charles Dickens' 800-page novel is simply entertaining: It has funny moments, dramatic moments, Victorian costumes, and convincing street scenes of bustling 19th-century London. The English is often proper and lyrical; there are jocular people, loathsome people, and loving people, and their world is filled to the brim with pleasant music. Nevertheless, at times the film does feel a bit rushed. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Old School
Here's a film that relies on a whole list of old clichés (marriage is a ball and chain; the school losers vs. the campus suits) to deliver comedy that's actually really funny in a dumb kind of way. Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn play a trio of buddies who gave up partying too soon, and who attempt to get back to their wild roots by starting a frat house on a college campus--never mind that they're all way past college age. The story line is completely irrelevant from there, made from the same mush as a freshman's brain on a Friday night. (JENNIFER MAERZ)
Open Hearts
A handsome young couple get engaged, the next day the boy is hit by a car and paralyzed, and the girl ends up having an affair with one of his doctors--a doctor whose wife happened to be driving the car that hit the boy. It sounds like a trite, melodramatic story, but filmmaker Susanne Bier uses Dogme 95 to her advantage by making every last character pitiful and charming at the same time--like real folks who've gotten caught up in bizarre circumstances. (AMY JENNIGES)
* The Pianist
Despite appearances to the contrary, the film is not about the indomitable spirit of a survivor. It's about how low a human being can sink in order to live, and the depths of abasement a race is capable of withstanding in order to avoid extinction. There's no heroism in the picture, and all redemption is tempered by the knowledge of what's coming next. It's here, in the deeply Eastern European black comedy of this knowledge, that the film and its maker mark their territory most boldly. (Reassuring the Poles that "the Russians will be here soon" is a classic Polanski irony.) For all the possible autobiography of the story, The Pianist is most personal when it stares into the abyss of the Holocaust and finds nothing looking back. (SEAN NELSON)
The Quiet American
Michael Caine deserves all the praise he's received for his role as Fowler, while Brendan Fraser slightly overplays the wide-eyed idealism that inspired America's misguided involvement in Vietnam. The metaphor of the love triangle doesn't work here nearly as well as the more overt politics, but the movie is worth seeing if only because it shows how America can do the wrong thing with the best of intentions. (ANDY SPLETZER)
Rabbit-Proof Fence
Director Phillip Noyce makes all the right decisions in telling what could have (justifiably) been a big slab of moist, liberal liver and onions; a tale of indomitable metaphor and sackcloth villainy. Instead it is a measured tale of a secret history, and of basic human desires asserting themselves in the most inspirational of ways. (SEAN NELSON)
The Recruit
A perfect example of no-risk filmmaking. Recent M.I.T. grad Colin Farrel is recruited by CIA agent Al Pacino. Why does Farrell spurn possible millions with Dell computers to become a spook? The disappearance of his father, who may have been an agent himself--oh, and the really hot CIA trainee he has his eye on might also have something to do with it. Predictably, everything is not what it seems, and predictably The Recruit, though solidly made, doesn't really add up to much. Pacino naps his way through his role, and the director, Roger Donaldson, shows close to zero imagination. In short, it's the cinematic equivelent of "Yeah, whatever." (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Russian Ark
For all its technical marvels, Russian Ark is essentially a monologue of Eastern European cynicism fleshed out with visual aids from history. The film's insufferable theatrical conventions--mainly a function of the actors--can be forgiven because of the scope of the production; but when you peel away the technical novelty, you're basically watching a bunch of old paint.
The Safety of Objects
In this deeply unsatisfying drama, the distraught lives of weird suburban parents and the parents' weirder kids are intertwined through divorce, backseat teenage sex, yoga, and most importantly, a tragic auto accident that leaves a young man in a coma. (JOSH FEIT)
Shanghai Knights
Here's a stupid idea: Take Owen Wilson, one of the funniest people on the planet, and completely dehumorize him. This seems to be the prevailing thought running through the minds of Shanghai Knights' filmmakers during production. A sequel to the fairly entertaining Shanghai Noon, the 2.0 version re-teams Wilson and Jackie Chan (who is still brilliant, if a lot slower than he used to be) and, through some plot device involving a sacred seal (or something), sends them to London. Hilarity does not ensue, but a couple of cool fights do. That's about it. (Unrelated sidenote: "dehumorize" may not actually be a word.) (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
Spider
See review this issue. Metro
Talk to Her
Talk to Her, Spain's camp bad boy Pedro Almodovar's latest film, contains no drugs or sex, and I didn't even notice until it was over. That's because Almodovar has always trafficked in extreme emotions and the actions that spring from them. Actions and craziness often overshadow feelings in his earlier films--but with Talk to Her, Almodovar gives us the most mature and deeply felt of his movies. The story of two comatose women (one a female bullfighter and the other a ballerina), the two men who care for them (Benigno, a male nurse, and Marco, a writer), and the friendships that grow between them. The two men deal differently with their sleeping beauties: Marco retreats into silence and Benigno, who cared for his mother before becoming a nurse, talks and carries on as if Alicia were awake and responsive. The movie unfolds with grace and still manages to shock while being funny, strange, morally complex, and moving. (NATE LIPPENS)
Tears of the Sun
Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Tears of the Sun takes the United States' 1994 blunder in Rwanda and transfers it to Nigeria, where the president and his family have been assassinated in a military upheaval, and armed militias are marching through the country slaughtering civilians. In an attempt to rescue an American doctor (Monica Bellucci) working as a missionary, a group of Navy SEALs, led by Lieutenant Waters (Bruce Willis), is sent in for an evacuation. Unfortunately, the film itself exists in a Hollywood foreign--policy pipe dream, as our indefensible policy of only interceding in atrocity when American interests are at stake is abandoned, and the American military does right by humanity for a change--a plot decision that may make for smooth consumption by the American public, but which, in reality, is completely dishonest. (BRADLEY STEINBACHER)
TThe Wild Thornberrys
Nickelodeon's marginally successful animated series--the movie!
WillDard
Twenty bucks says Crispin Glover couldn't even save this one in a wig and platform shoes. Lewis & Clark, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12
